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Bullying lawsuit against East Tenn. school system tossed out

An effort to hold local school boards legally responsible for bullying through civil-rights litigation has failed.

In 2013, a handful of lawsuits — citing the same constitutional rights at issue — were filed in U.S. District Court in what the authoring attorney contended was an effort to force school boards to get tougher on the prevention of bullying.

None have been successful, with the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals earlier this month shooting down the final case. The ruling, issued in a lawsuit filed against the Grainger County Board of Education and administrators at Rutledge Middle School, offers a primer on when school systems can be held legally accountable for failing to protect students from bullying and when they cannot.

In that case, a slightly-built boy endured harassment, name-calling and violence during his seventh- and eighth-grade school years. Most of the bullying revolved around allegations the boy was gay. There was no single bully or group of bullies but instead a series of incidents involving a variety of students and circumstances. The only constant was the victim, identified in the court record only as 'D.S.'

The boy's parents repeatedly complained. The lawsuit stated the boy 'begged not to go to school' and suffered sleep loss and stomach trouble in addition to physical injuries in some of the attacks.

The lawsuit alleged Grainger County's school system was at fault for failing to protect the boy and tried to make the case the boy's constitutional rights were violated. Attorneys Jonathan Taylor and Arthur Knight III countered school officials responded to each complaint and took action where it was warranted, even if those disciplinary actions, which included some suspensions, did not solve the boy's bullying problem.

In its ruling, the 6th Circuit cited a handful of other bullying lawsuits filed across the nation in recent years, few of which have been successful.

The primary cause for failure, according to the court? A failure to show 'deliberate indifference' by school officials.

'Each time D.S. or his mother communicated a specific complaint of harassment, the school investigated promptly and thoroughly,' the court noted. 'The decision to punish and the level of punishment differed based on school officials' conversations with alleged offenders and eyewitnesses, the offending student's record of similar behavior and school officials' evaluation of the severity of the conduct — all reasonable considerations,' the opinion stated. 'Moreover, courts should not second-guess school officials' disciplinary judgments.

'We acknowledge that the school's remedial measures did not eliminate D.S.'s problems with other students. Although the school's efforts did not end D.S.'s problems, (the law) does not require school districts to eliminate peer harassment.'

The court also held that schools and their employees have no legal duty to protect students from 'private actors,' even if those 'private actors' are other students — unless the school system itself either creates or increases the danger.

'The 6th Circuit has consistently rejected the existence of a special relationship between school officials and students based on compulsory attendance laws or the school's knowledge of a student's vulnerability,' the opinion stated. 'Failing to punish or insufficiently punishing assailants is generally not an affirmative act (of creating or increasing danger), and, even where it is, it typically does not create or increase the (student's) risk of harm.'

Read or Share this story: https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2016/04/12/bullying-lawsuit-against-east-tenn-school-system-tossed-out/90894854/